Coquetries

Judging comment:

I was torn between this poem and one other from the nominations page when I was deciding on my votes, and being completely honest I hesitated several times before choosing this as my final decision. Not because I thought that this didn't deserve to be chosen or that one was better than the other but because this seemed more like a "venting" kind of poem to me. What finally swayed my vote this way, was the imagery that Chels placed within this piece, in particular the first two stanzas, I find it beautiful.
"I tried my hardest to bite the nails of this poem, to sweat from its
forehead, to lay on the lines of this paper, surrender to these ongoing
feelings and leave it blank,"
This was my favourite part of the entire poem as the imagery here is so incredibly vivid and detailed, the emotion so real and heart-felt. I truly believe this is one of the better openings to a poem that I have seen in all my years of reading poetry, both published and unpublished.
My only critique here is for the last few stanzas; to try and reword a little or maybe swap some things around, add more imagery etc, so that it becomes less of a venting poem towards the end, and sticks with the beautiful content and theme it started with originally.

I envy your writing skills, dear. I swear, you have this direct tone, this "LISTEN TO ME" technique in your writing, it directs the attention straight to your words, your heart and I feel every single emotion of every word. It's really breathtaking.

MaryAnne said a lot of what I would've said, so I'm not going to go into detail on my thoughts and so forth.

I love the damn you part. I can picture you not so much screaming, but scolding this person. Finger pointing in the face and all. You laying your heart out like this, and then they just treat you like it was just something casual.

Lovely, as always. I'm really liking how you are writing more prose.

First, I want to apologize for not commenting on this sooner!

Second, I really liked the formatting of your poem here. It suited your intentions well for this poem I think and still flowed, one thought process to the next. I've found myself in a few poems writing in prose form or paragraphs, but then breaking it up so it can be easy on the eyes. And even here you made good use of punctuation and especially that pause with the dashes.

I loved the boldness of your beginning. As you know, you have this directness and hard-hitting voice that the reader remembers. To me, it speaks of having the courage to bring those issues and what haunts you to the front and center.
The fact that you already know and want to lay out your feelings shows how much you've come across, how this person had an impact in your life yet walked away. It makes it that much more real to the reader that you say you will choose to be blunt, not going over each and every thought, whether that's in editing or removing certain thoughts/emotions.

It was interesting how you brought up talking about flirting and what it most certainly wasn't. I think people can easily view it as something fun when one's bored, o something for entertainment, affection, something momentary. But it could also be a person stepping up to prompt what they never could do before.

"Flirting was not my way of passing time, using your company to get me
to forget, this bed is empty, this body has not been held, this heart
has not been properly taken care of... No."

- I wasn't too set on all the commas. Maybe you could add a "that" after "to get me to forget"?

That third stanza had such a flare of "you". The honesty and truth that this person is a breath of fresh air in your life, a true treasure.

I was almost thinking that the fourth stanza had a great build up with the repetition of "damn you" but fell a bit short with only one line following it then ending the stanza. I felt like there should have been a bit more? Or something more powerful like giving a specifc? I don't know, maybe that was just me

The rest is so emotional and I liked your inclusion of all the questions. It definitely shows the risk of you putting yourself out there, yet how you may not (deep down) resent this person, want to forget them totally. You want the possibility to be there that they'll realize you again and fall for you this time. Finish what you both dreamed about.

So many thoughts in this piece, good write! A lot of emotions addressed and it really was a journey. Hopefully it helped to express this and just get what is digging at you out. Take care <3

The way you worded this is wonderful. I didn't see any flaws that caught my eye so the breakdown.

Again the way you worded this could be a few way of interpreting. At first since you were talking about paper and writing I thought this was about that but nope it was about writing for a person that hurt you somewhere in the past or thats what I saw in my mind. Of course we all have been hurt in someway or another... but we can all overcome. I think writing it all out is a good way to get what we want to say out and you did well here.

Its hard not knowing the other feelings of someone else but sometimes as you said here you have to be honest with yourself and tell them no matter what. I loved the third stanza as it really caught my eye while I was reading this. I love when people are like this in our lives. Because you can see the beauty that's inside and out. As always beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I think thats what you are saying. Love is magical and painful all at the same time. Anyway your writing is fantastic. As it takes you on a great journey of ups and downs. You think you fall in love and then it all comes crashing. Just my opinion.